Svyatoslav I Igorevich of Kiev (c942-972)
}} Svyatoslav I Igorevich (Old East Slavic: С~тославъ / Свѧтославъ Игорєвичь, Sventoslavŭ / Svantoslavŭ Igorevičǐ; Old Norse: Sveinald Ingvarsson) (c. 942 – March 972), was a Grand prince of Kiev famous for his persistent campaigns in the east and south, which precipitated the collapse of two great powers of Eastern Europe, Khazaria and the First Bulgarian Empire. He also conquered numerous East Slavic tribes, defeated the Alans and attacked the Volga Bulgars,A History of Russia: Since 1855, Walter Moss, pg 29Khazarian state and its role in the history of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus A.P. Novoseltsev, Moscow, Nauka, 1990. and at times was allied with the Pechenegs and Magyars. His decade-long reign over the Kievan Rus' was marked by rapid expansion into the Volga River valley, the Pontic steppe, and the Balkans. By the end of his short life, Svyatoslav carved out for himself the largest state in Europe, eventually moving his capital in 969 from Kiev (modern-day Ukraine) to Pereyaslavets (identified as the modern village of Nufăru, Romania) on the Danube. In contrast with his mother's conversion to Christianity, Svyatoslav remained a staunch pagan all of his life. Due to his abrupt death in ambush, his conquests, for the most part, were not consolidated into a functioning empire, while his failure to establish a stable succession led to a fratricidal feud among his three sons, resulting in two of them being killed. Name The Primary Chronicle records Svyatoslav as the first ruler of the Kievan Rus' with a name of Slavic origin (as opposed to his predecessors, whose names had Old Norse forms). The name Svyatoslav, however, is not recorded in other medieval Slavic countries. Nevertheless, Sveinald is the Old East Norse cognate with the Slavic form as attested in the Old East Norse patronymic of Svyatoslav's son Vladimir: Valdamarr Sveinaldsson. This patronymic naming convention continues in Icelandic and in East Slavic languages. Even in Rus', it was attested only among the members of the house of Rurik, as were the names of Svyatoslav's immediate successors: Vladimir, Yaroslav, and Mstislav. Some scholars see the name of Svyatoslav, composed of the Slavic roots for "holy" and "glory", as an artificial derivation combining the names of his predecessors Oleg and Rurik (whose names mean "holy" and "glorious" in Old Norse, respectively).See (Moscow, 1970). Early life and personality Virtually nothing is known about Svyatoslav's childhood and youth, which he spent reigning in Novgorod. Svyatoslav's father, Igor, was killed by the Drevlians around 945, and his mother, Olga, ruled as regent in Kiev until Svyatoslav reached maturity (ca. 963).If Olga was indeed born in 879, as the Primary Chronicle seems to imply, she should have been about 65 at the time of Svyatoslav's birth. There are clearly some problems with chronology. Svyatoslav was tutored by a Varangian named Asmud.Primary Chronicle entry for 968 The tradition of employing Varangian tutors for the sons of ruling princes survived well into the 11th century. Svyatoslav appears to have had little patience for administration. His life was spent with his druzhina (roughly, "company") in permanent warfare against neighboring states. According to the Primary Chronicle, he carried on his expeditions neither wagons nor kettles, and he boiled no meat, rather cutting off small strips of horseflesh, game, or beef to eat after roasting it on the coals. Nor did he have a tent, rather spreading out a horse-blanket under him and setting his saddle under his head, and all his retinue did likewise.Cross and Sherbowitz-Wetzor, Primary Chronicle, p. 84. , by Fedor Solntsev]] Svyatoslav's appearance has been described very clearly by Leo the Deacon, who himself attended the meeting of Svyatoslav with John I Tzimiskes. Following Deacon's memories, Svyatoslav was a blue-eyed male of average height but of stalwart build, much more sturdy than Tzimiskes. He shaved his blond head and his beard but wore a bushy mustache and a sidelock as a sign of his nobility.For the alternative translations of the same passage of the Greek original that say that Svyatoslav may have not shaven but wispy beard and not one but two sidelocks on each side of his head, see e.g. Ian Heath "The Vikings (Elite 3)", Osprey Publishing 1985; , p.60 or David Nicolle "Armies of Medieval Russia 750–1250 (Men-at-Arms 333)" Osprey Publishing 1999; , p.44 He preferred to dress in white, and it was noted that his garments were much cleaner than those of his men, although he had a lot in common with his warriors. He wore a single large gold earring bearing a carbuncle and two pearls.Vernadsky 276–277. The sidelock is reminiscent of Turkic hairstyles and practices and was later mimicked by Cossacks. Religious beliefs Svyatoslav's mother, Olga, converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity at the court of Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus in 957,Based on his analysis of De Ceremoniis, Aleksandr Nazarenko assumes that Olga hoped to arraange a marriage between Svyatoslav and a Byzantine princess. If her proposal was peremptorily declined (as it most certainly would have been), it is hardly surprising that Svyatoslav would look at the Byzantine Empire and her Christian culture with suspicion. Nazarenko 302. at the approximate age of 67. However, Svyatoslav remained a pagan all of his life. In the treaty of 971 between Svyatoslav and the Byzantine emperor John I Tzimiskes, the Rus' are swearing by Perun and Veles. According to the Primary Chronicle, he believed that his warriors (druzhina) would lose respect for him and mock him if he became a Christian.Primary Chronicle _____. The allegiance of his warriors was of paramount importance in his conquest of an empire that stretched from the Volga to the Danube. Family , with her escort in Constantinople, a miniature from the late 11th century chronicle of John Skylitzes.]] Very little is known of Svyatoslav's family life. It is possible that he was not the only (or the eldest) son of his parents. The Russo-Byzantine treaty of 945 mentions a certain Predslava, Volodislav's wife, as the noblest of the Rus' women after Olga. The fact that Predslava was Oleg's mother is presented by Vasily Tatishchev. He also speculated that Predslava was of a Hungarian nobility. George Vernadsky was among many historians to speculate that Volodislav was Igor's eldest son and heir who died at some point during Olga's regency. Another chronicle told that Oleg was the eldest son of Igor. At the time of Igor's death, Svyatoslav was still a child, and he was raised by his mother or under her instructions. Her influence, however, did not extend to his religious observance. Svyatoslav had several children, but the origin of his wives is not specified in the chronicle. By his wives, he had Yaropolk and Oleg.Shared maternal paternity of Yaropolk and Oleg is a matter of debate by historians. By Malusha, a woman of indeterminate origins,She is traditionally identified in Russian historiography as Dobrynya's sister. Svyatoslav had Vladimir, who would ultimately break with his father's paganism and convert Rus' to Christianity. John Skylitzes reported that Vladimir had a brother named Sfengus; whether this Sfengus was a son of Svyatoslav, a son of Malusha by a prior or subsequent husband, or an unrelated Rus' nobleman is unclear.Indeed, Franklin and Shepard advanced the hypothesis that Sfengus was the same person as Mstislav of Chernigov. Franklin and Shepard 200-201. Eastern campaigns Shortly after his accession to the throne, Svyatoslav began campaigning to expand Rus' control over the Volga valley and the Pontic steppe region. His greatest success was the conquest of Khazaria, which for centuries had been one of the strongest states of Eastern Europe. The sources are not clear about the roots of the conflict between Khazaria and Rus', so several possibilities have been suggested. The Rus' had an interest in removing the Khazar hold on the Volga trade route because the Khazars collected duties from the goods transported by the Volga. Historians have suggested that the Byzantine Empire may have incited the Rus' against the Khazars, who fell out with the Byzantines after the persecutions of the Jews in the reign of Romanus I Lecapenus."Rus", Encyclopaedia of Islam Svyatoslav began by rallying the East Slavic vassal tribes of the Khazars to his cause. Those who would not join him, such as the Vyatichs, were attacked and forced to pay tribute to the Kievan Rus' rather than to the Khazars.Christian 345. It is disputed whether Svyatoslav invaded the land of Vyatichs that year. The only campaign against the Vyatichs explicitly mentioned in the Primary Chronicle is dated to 966. According to a legend recorded in the Primary Chronicle, Svyatoslav sent a message to the Vyatich rulers, consisting of a single phrase: "I want to come at you!" (Old East Slavic: "хощю на вы ити")Russian Primary Chronicle (ПСРЛ. — Т. 2. Ипатьевская летопись. — Sankt Petersburg., 1908) for year 6472. The chronicler may have wished to contrast Svyatoslav's open declaration of war to stealthy tactics employed by many other early medieval conquerors. This phrase is used in modern Russian (usually misquoted as "Иду на вы") and in modern Ukrainian ("Іду на ви") to denote an unequivocal declaration of one's intentions. Proceeding by the Oka and Volga rivers, he attacked Volga Bulgaria. He employed Oghuz and Pecheneg mercenaries in this campaign, perhaps to counter the superior cavalry of the Khazars and Bulgars.For Svyatoslav's reliance on nomad cavalry, see, e.g., Franklin and Shepard 149; Christian 298; Pletneva 18. ]] Svyatoslav destroyed the Khazar city of Sarkel around 965, possibly sacking (but not occupying) the Khazar city of Kerch on the Crimea as well.Christian 298. The Primary Chronicle is very succinct about the whole campaign against the Khazars, saying only that Svyatoslav "took their city and Belaya Vezha". At Sarkel he established a Rus' settlement called Belaya Vyezha ("the white tower" or "the white fortress", the East Slavic translation for "Sarkel").The town was an important trade center located near the portage between the Volga and Don Rivers. By the early 12th century, however, it had been destroyed by the Kipchaks. He subsequently destroyed the Khazar capital of Atil.See, generally Christian 297–298; Dunlop passim. A visitor to Atil wrote soon after Svyatoslav's campaign: "The Rus' attacked, and no grape or raisin remained, not a leaf on a branch."Logan (1992), p. 202 The exact chronology of his Khazar campaign is uncertain and disputed; for example, Mikhail Artamonov and David Christian proposed that the sack of Sarkel came after the destruction of Atil.Artamonov 428; Christian 298. Although Ibn Haukal reports the sack of Samandar by Svyatoslav, the Rus' leader did not bother to occupy the Khazar heartlands north of the Caucasus Mountains permanently. On his way back to Kiev, Svyatoslav chose to strike the Ossetians and force them into subservience.The campaign against the Ossetians is attested in the Primary Chronicle. The Novgorod First Chronicle specifies that Svyatoslav resettled the Ossetians near Kiev, but Sakharov finds this claim dubitable. Therefore, Khazar successor statelets continued their precarious existence in the region.The Mandgelis Document refers to a Khazar potentate in the Taman Peninsula around 985, long after Svyatoslav's death. Kedrenos reported that the Byzantines and Rus' collaborated in the conquest of a Khazar kingdom in the Crimea in 1016, and still later, Ibn al-Athir reported an unsuccessful attack by al-Fadl ibn Muhammad against the Khazars in the Caucasus in 1030. For more information on these and other references, see Khazars#Late references to the Khazars. The destruction of Khazar imperial power paved the way for Kievan Rus' to dominate north-south trade routes through the steppe and across the Black Sea, routes that formerly had been a major source of revenue for the Khazars. Moreover, Svyatoslav's campaigns led to increased Slavic settlement in the region of the Saltovo-Mayaki culture, greatly changing the demographics and culture of the transitional area between the forest and the steppe.Christian 298. Campaigns in the Balkans The annihilation of Khazaria was undertaken against the background of the Rus'-Byzantine alliance, concluded in the wake of Igor's Byzantine campaign in 944.Most historians believe the Greeks were interested in the destruction of Khazaria. Another school of thought essentializes the report of Yahya of Antioch that, prior to the Danube campaign, the Byzantines and the Rus' were at war. See Sakharov, chapter I. Close military ties between the Rus' and Byzantium are illustrated by the fact, reported by John Skylitzes, that a Rus' detachment accompanied Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros Phokas in his victorious naval expedition to Crete. In 967 or 968,The exact date of Svyatoslav's Bulgarian campaign, which likely did not commence until the conclusion of his Khazar campaign, is unknown. Nikephoros sent to Svyatoslav his agent, Kalokyros, with the task of talking Svyatoslav into assisting him in a war against Bulgaria.Mikhail Tikhomirov and Vladimir Pashuto, among others, assume that the Emperor was interested primarily in diverting Svyatoslav's attention from Chersonesos, a Byzantine possession in the Crimea. Indeed, Leo the Deacon three times mentions that Svyatoslav and his father Igor controlled Cimmerian Bosporus. If so, a conflict of interests in the Crimea was inevitable. The Suzdal Chronicle, though a rather late source, also mentions Svyatoslav's war against Chersonesos. In the peace treaty of 971, Svyatoslav promised not to wage wars against either Constantinople or Chersonesos. Byzantine sources also report that Kalokyros attempted to persuade Svyatoslav to support Kalokyros in a coup against the reigning Byzantine emperor. As remuneration for his help, Svyatoslav was supposed to retain a permanent hold on Bulgaria. Modern historians, however, assign little historical importance to this story. Kendrick 157. Svyatoslav was paid 15,000 pounds of gold and set sail with an army of 60,000 men, including thousands of Pecheneg mercenaries.All figures in this article, including the numbers of Svyatoslav's troops, are based on the reports of Byzantine sources, which may differ from those of the Slavonic chronicles. Greek sources report Khazars and "Turks" in Svyatoslav's army as well as Pechenegs. As used in such Byzantine writings as De Administrando Imperio by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, "Turks" refers to Magyars. The Rus'-Magyar alliance resulted in the Hungarian expedition against the second largest city of the empire, Thessalonica, in 968.W. Treadgold, A History of the Byzantine State and Society, 509 In the Battle of Silistra Svyatoslav defeated the Bulgarian ruler Boris IIBoris II was captured by the Byzantines in 971 and carried off to Constantinople as a prisoner. and proceeded to occupy the whole of northern Bulgaria. Meanwhile, the Byzantines bribed the Pechenegs to attack and besiege Kiev, where Olga stayed with Svyatoslav's son Vladimir. The siege was relieved by the druzhina of Pretich, and immediately following the Pecheneg retreat, Olga sent a reproachful letter to Svyatoslav. He promptly returned and defeated the Pechenegs, who continued to threaten Kiev. Svyatoslav refused to turn his Balkan conquests over to the Byzantines, and the parties fell out as a result. To the chagrin of his boyars and his mother (who died within three days after learning about his decision), Svyatoslav decided to move his capital to Pereyaslavets in the mouth of the Danube due to the great potential of that location as a commercial hub. In the Primary Chronicle record for 969, Svyatoslav explains that it is to Pereyaslavets, the centre of his lands, "all the riches flow: gold, silks, wine, and various fruits from Greece, silver and horses from Hungary and Bohemia, and from Rus' furs, wax, honey, and slaves". .]] In summer 969, Svyatoslav left Rus' again, dividing his dominion into three parts, each under a nominal rule of one of his sons. At the head of an army that included Pecheneg and Magyar auxiliary troops, he invaded Bulgaria again, devastating Thrace, capturing the city of Philippopolis, and massacring its inhabitants. Nikephoros responded by repairing the defenses of Constantinople and raising new squadrons of armored cavalry. In the midst of his preparations, Nikephoros was overthrown and killed by John Tzimiskes, who thus became the new Byzantine emperor.Kendrick 158 , meeting between John Tzimiskes and Svyatoslav.]] John Tzimiskes first attempted to persuade Svyatoslav into leaving Bulgaria, but he was unsuccessful. Challenging the Byzantine authority, Svyatoslav crossed the Danube and laid siege to Adrianople, causing panic on the streets of Constantinople in summer 970.Simultaneously, Otto I attacked Byzantine possessions in the south of Italy. This remarkable coincidence may be interpreted as an evidence of the anti-Byzantine German-Russian alliance. See: Manteuffel 41. Later that year, the Byzantines launched a counteroffensive. Being occupied with suppressing a revolt of Bardas Phokas in Asia Minor, John Tzimiskes sent his commander-in-chief, Bardas Skleros, who defeated the coalition of Rus', Pechenegs, Magyars, and Bulgarians in the Battle of Arcadiopolis.Grekov 445–446. The Byzantine sources report the enemy casualties to be as high as 20,000, a figure modern historians find to be highly improbable. Meanwhile, John, having quelled the revolt of Bardas Phokas, came to the Balkans with a large army and promoting himself as the liberator of Bulgaria from Svyatoslav, penetrated the impracticable mountain passes and shortly thereafter captured Marcianopolis, where the Rus' were holding a number of Bulgar princes hostage. Svyatoslav retreated to Dorostolon, which the Byzantine armies besieged for sixty-five days. Cut off and surrounded, Svyatoslav came to terms with John and agreed to abandon the Balkans, renounce his claims to the southern Crimea, and return west of the Dnieper River. In return, the Byzantine emperor supplied the Rus' with food and safe passage home. Svyatoslav and his men set sail and landed on Berezan Island at the mouth of the Dnieper, where they made camp for the winter. Several months later, their camp was devastated by famine, so that even a horse's head could not be bought for less than a half-grivna, reports the Kievan chronicler of the Primary Chronicle.Franklin and Shepard 149–150 While Svyatoslav's campaign brought no tangible results for the Rus', it weakened the Bulgarian statehood and left it vulnerable to the attacks of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer four decades later. Death and aftermath ]] Fearing that the peace with Svyatoslav would not endure, the Byzantine emperor induced the Pecheneg khan Kurya to kill Svyatoslav before he reached Kiev. This was in line with the policy outlined by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in ''De Administrando Imperio of fomenting strife between the Rus' and the Pechenegs.Constantine VII pointed out that, by virtue of their controlling the Dnieper cataracts, the Pechenegs may easily attack and destroy the Rus' vessels sailing along the river. According to the Slavic chronicle, Sveneld attempted to warn Svyatoslav to avoid the Dnieper rapids, but the prince slighted his wise advice and was ambushed and slain by the Pechenegs when he tried to cross the cataracts near Khortitsa early in 972. The Primary Chronicle reports that his skull was made into a chalice by the Pecheneg khan.The use of a defeated enemy's skull as a drinking vessel is reported by numerous authors through history among various steppe peoples, such as the Scythians. Kurya likely intended this as a compliment to Svyatoslav; sources report that Kurya and his wife drank from the skull and prayed for a son as brave as the deceased Rus' warlord. Christian 344; Pletneva 19; Cross and Sherbowitz-Wetzor 90. Following Svyatoslav's death, tensions between his sons grew. A war broke out between his legitimate sons, Oleg and Yaropolk, in 976, at the conclusion of which Oleg was killed. In 977 Vladimir fled Novgorod to escape Oleg's fate and went to Scandinavia, where he raised an army of Varangians and returned in 980. Yaropolk was killed, and Vladimir became the sole ruler of Kievan Rus'. Art and literature . Svyatoslav's Return from the Danube to His Family in Kiev (1773)]] Svyatoslav has long been a hero of Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian patriots due to his great military successes. His figure first attracted attention of Russian artists and poets during the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), which provided obvious parallels with Svyatoslav's push towards Constantinople. Russia's southward expansion and the imperialistic ventures of Catherine II in the Balkans seemed to have been legitimized by Svyatoslav's campaigns eight centuries earlier. Among the works created during the war was Yakov Knyazhnin's tragedy Olga (1772). The Russian playwright chose to introduce Svyatoslav as his protagonist, although his active participation in the events following Igor's death is out of sync with the traditional chronology. Knyazhnin's rival Nikolai Nikolev (1758–1815) also wrote a play on the subject of Svyatoslav's life. Ivan Akimov's painting Svyatoslav's Return from the Danube to Kiev (1773) explores the conflict between military honour and family attachment. It is a vivid example of Poussinesque rendering of early medieval subject matter. Interest in Svyatoslav's career increased in the 19th century. Klavdiy Lebedev depicted an episode of Svyatoslav's meeting with Emperor John in his well-known painting, while Eugene Lanceray sculpted an equestrian statue of Svyatoslav in the early 20th century.E. A Lanceray. "Svyatoslav on the way to [[Tsargrad].] ", The Russian History in the Mirror of the Fine Arts Svyatoslav appears in the 1913 poem of Velimir Khlebnikov Written before the war (#70. Написанное до войны) as an epitome of militant Slavdom: Svyatoslav is the villain of the novel The Lost Kingdom, or the Passing of the Khazars, by Samuel Gordon,London: Shapiro, Vallentine, 1926 a fictionalised account of the destruction of Khazaria by the Rus'. The Slavic warrior figures in a more positive context in the story "Chernye Strely Vyaticha" by Vadim Viktorovich Kargalov; the story is included in his book Istoricheskie povesti.(Moscow: Det. lit., 1989). In 2005, reports circulated that a village in the Belgorod region had erected a monument to Svyatoslav's victory over the Khazars by the Russian sculptor Vyacheslav Klykov. The reports described the 13-meter tall statue as depicting a Rus' cavalryman trampling a supine Khazar bearing a Star of David and Kolovrat. This created an outcry within the Jewish community of Russia. The controversy was further exacerbated by Klykov's connections with Pamyat and other anti-Semitic organizations, as well as by his involvement in the "letter of 500", a controversial appeal to the Prosecutor General to review all Jewish organizations in Russia for extremism.Alexander Verkhovsky. Anti-Semitism in Russia: 2005. Key Developments and New Trends The Press Centre of the Belgorod Regional Administration responded by stating that a planned monument to Svyatoslav had not yet been constructed but would show "respect towards representatives of all nationalities and religions.""The Federation of Jewish Communities protests against the presence of a Star of David in a new sculpture in Belgorod", Interfax, 21 November 2005; Kozhevnikova, Galina, "Radical nationalism and efforts to oppose it in Russia in 2005"; "FJC Russia Appeal Clarifies Situation Over Potentially Anti-Semitic Monument" (Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS Press Release), 23 November 2005; Dahan, David, "Jews protest trampled Star of David statue", European Jewish Press, 22 November 2005 When the statue was unveiled, the shield bore a twelve-pointed star. Svyatoslav is the main character of the books "Knyaz" ("Князь") and "The Hero" ("Герой"), written by Russian writer Alexander Mazin. On 7 November 2011, a Ukrainian fisherman found a one metre long sword in the waters of the Dnieper on Khortytsia near where Svyatoslav is believed to have been killed in 972. The handle is made out of four different metals including gold and silver, and could possibly have belonged to Svyatoslav himself. See also *List of Russian rulers *List of Ukrainian rulers Notes References *Artamonov, Mikhail Istoriya Khazar. Leningrad, 1962. *Barthold, W.. "Khazar". Encyclopaedia of Islam (Brill Online). Eds.: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 1996. *Chertkov A. D. . Moscow, 1843. *Chlenov, A. M. ( .) " ." (" ) (Moscow, 1970). *Christian, David. A History of Russia, Mongolia and Central Asia. Blackwell, 1999. *Cross, S. H., and O. P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor. The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text. Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America, 1953. *Dunlop, D. M. History of the Jewish Khazars. Princeton Univ. Press, 1954. *Franklin, Simon and Jonathan Shepard. The Emergence of Rus 750-1200. London: Longman, 1996. . *Golden, P. B. "Rus." Encyclopaedia of Islam (Brill Online). Eds.: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2006. *Grekov, Boris. Kiev Rus. tr. Sdobnikov, Y., ed. Ogden, Denis. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1959 * *Kendrick, Thomas D. A History of the Vikings. Courier Dover Publications, 2004. *Logan, Donald F. The Vikings in History 2nd ed. Routledge, 1992. *Manteuffel Th. " ". . Warsaw, t. 22, 1970. *Nazarenko, A. N. ( ). ( ). Moscow, Russian Academy of Sciences, World History Institute, 2001. . *Pletneva, Svetlana. Polovtsy Moscow: Nauka, 1990. *Sakharov, Andrey. The Diplomacy of Svyatoslav. Moscow: Nauka, 1982. (online) *Subtelny, Orest. Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988. *Vernadsky, G. V. The Origins of Russia. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959. 0945